


Epikegster

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Epikegster, Gen, M/M, kent parson pov, slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 04:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: Kent Parson shows up at the party with the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes and his shoulders stooped. He hadn’t realized there would be a party tonight and the last thing he wants is to get caught up in the revelry or fans. He’s here for a reason, after all, and the season won’t bring him back this way for too long, so there’s no room for missed chances. There’s word of Jack fielding offers from other teams.  Kent has to get him thinking Aces, remembering them, before it’s too late.





	Epikegster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madameofmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madameofmusic/gifts).



> So way back when LVA@PVD first came out, Kylie (aka whiskeytangofrogman aka madameofmusic) was a mindreader and came up with this post: "everyone is saying the image of kent crying and his hands shaking were from after his confrontation with jack but like… what if it was before, seeing jack cuddled up with bitty on the wall"
> 
> As I said: mindreader, because I'd been thinking the same thing. So of course I wrote it.
> 
> Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi Ukazu.
> 
> Also, if you're concerned about the slur tag, Kent refers to Bitty as a twink in his inner monologue.

Kent Parson shows up at the party with the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes and his shoulders stooped. He hadn’t realized there would be a party tonight and the last thing he wants is to get caught up in the revelry or fans. He’s here for a reason, after all, and the season won’t bring him back this way for too long, so there’s no room for missed chances. There’s word of Jack fielding offers from other teams.  Kent has to get him thinking Aces, remembering them, before it’s too late.

So he keeps his head down and shoulders his way through dancers and drunken revelry and slips past at least three very heated make-out sessions (one which might have been more, but Kent rolled his eyes up into the bill of his hat because he in no way wanted to confirm that) to finally find Jack where he’s always preferred being when at a party: shoved up against the wall.

Kent smirks at that thought, of a time when they’d drunkenly stumble down the hallway at one of the parties they’d attend to find an open room before pressing in close. He remembers Jack telling stories he’s heard him mumbling to himself in the bathroom, each joke and dramatic pause scripted with careful attention. Even when he had a group of people’s attention for them, his back was always up against a wall. He had once told Kenny he felt safer that way.

It isn’t until he’s closer that he sees the blonde: the twink making heart eyes at Jack as he listens to the story. Kent rolls his eyes because he knows that look well enough. Plenty of girls–and, yes, a few guys–threw it Jack’s way in the Q, as well.  Jack was always oblivious. Jack had always had Kent sidled up against him, their shoulders pressed against each other, eyes regularly seeking each others’ out, little fingers curling together unseen between them.

Only, when Kent is about to interrupt, to call out and make his claim on Jack’s attention, he sees the way Jack leans in and looks at the twink and his voice is stolen from him along with his breath. Because he knows that grin and those eyes. Jack used the same ones to put the moves on him. Some dancers behind Kent jostle into him and nearly knock him over, but he pays no attention to their laughing, half-hearted apologies as the band around his chest tightens and his eyes begin to sting.

Kent had been trying for months to contact Jack–ever since word had gone around that he’d be attending a few development camps over the summer and Kent had wanted to invite him to Vegas for the Aces’, really–and had never heard so much as a word back. He’d forwarded the information about the camp to Jack and hadn’t heard anything. He’d sent it to Bad Bob to pass onto Jack and Bob had promised he would pass it on but no more. “This is Jack’s career and decision,” Bob had said and Kent had agreed. He just didn’t see why they couldn’t offer him an easier route. The last thing Kent wanted was the stress getting to Jack again. Sure, the last time they had met, Jack hadn’t quite been ready to talk things through and shut him down in front of his teammates, but Kent was absolutely certain he would not be able to handle another scare like the Draft without having a breakdown of his own.

Jack hadn’t shown up to, or even applied to, the Aces’ Development Camp and Kent could almost understand why when he heard the list of which ones he had attended, but Rhode Island? Really? They didn’t have a single cup under their belt! Mashkov was a good player and some of the vets were pretty solid, but the team wasn’t worth Jack. That much Kent knew.

When he tried to ask why, however, Jack never replied to his emails or his texts and never picked up his calls. Kent was about to write a fucking letter to see if snail mail stood a chance at a reply when he realized the team would be flying into Boston the night before their game against the Bruins.

So Kent rented a car, drove to Samwell, Massachusetts and shouldered his way anonymously through a party only to find his best friend and love making heart eyes right back at a twink.

Kent slams his eyes shut and squeezes them tight to keep the tears from overflowing, his hand fisting, nails biting into his palms to tear his attention away from the pain in his chest and his head from all this goddamn noise.  Once he is sure he won’t actually cry, Kent takes a deep breath, opens his eyes and watches the two pose for a selfie–Jack beaming like he was in that picture with Kent on his lap that Kent still kept in his wallet to look at and remember the way, “Kenny,” had always sounded on Jack’s lips–and the band around his chest making it hard to breathe snaps.

The pain burns away to anger and Kent stands tall, unhunching his shoulders and turning his cap back around. Someone looks his way in surprise and Kent smirks and winks back as the whispers start and he takes a step forward, into the bubble Jack and the twink have somehow built around themselves.

“I wouldn’t believe it if I weren’t seeing it myself. Jack Zimmermann. At a party. Taking a selfie,” he says with a smirk in place. He can see the flashes of phone cameras and hear the whispers and squeals. It reminds Kent of who he is, of what he is, of what he has built. He isn’t number 2 and hasn’t been in a long time – not in hockey, not in what Jack had always said mattered most. It gives him the courage to continue and the fortitude to do so with strength. He would show Jack just how unstressful, how easy, this could all be and he would go back to Boston with the knowledge that this time next year he would finally, finally have it all again. He would finally be whole because they would finally be Kenny and Zimms again. The thought makes his eyes light up.

“Hey, Zimms. Didja miss me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from Tumblr from forever ago. CP tumblr: rushingsnowy. Come scream with me about this amazing comic.


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